20 Great Games for Under $20

In today's gaming landscape where so many of the must-have new releases launch at 60 dollars, it's great that the PC is loaded with a ton of affordable alternatives. There are a lot of great games out there that cost less than twenty bucks apiece. Who cares about Battlefield 3 when we can get three, four, five, or even more games for the same price? True diamonds, but with a cubic zirconia price tag, these games span a variety of genres, from turn-based strategy to first person shooters to tower defense. They’re all great games, and all cost less than twenty Washingtons.

Greed - $9.99 on Steam or $29.97 for the 4-pack of multiplayer goodnessGreed, Corp offers turn-based strategy with a twist: each turn, part of your little world destroys itself as you and your opponent gather resources. Can you win before your world crashes to oblivion?

Memoir '44 Online - Free Download from SteamThis is a faithful recreation of the classic Days of Wonders wargame lite. Re-enact famous World War II scenarios in online tournaments. The first few games are free, but the cost to keep playing is pretty low.

Orcs Must Die - $14.99This is another take on a combination shooter and tower defense game, with a touch of light humor. Build a variety of orc-murdering traps as you try to defend your castle from the rampaging hordes.

Sins of a Solar Empire - $14.99 (includes all expansions)This isn't a new game, but it's new to Steam. Play one of the best RTS games in the past several years, as you build your space empire, conquer star systems and eventually rule the galaxy.

Section 8: Prejudice - $14.99Tired of ordinary guns? Section 8: Prejudice is what Unreal Tournament 3 should have been. Engage in conquest or assault scenarios across lush maps in your power armor. Complete side missions as you fight for objectives. You'll need to hone group tactics to win.

Sanctum - $9.99 for the base game; $29.99 for the 4-packMore tower defense, mixed with first person shooter goodness. You can play alone or co-op with friends as you build defenses and slow down enemy aliens, all the while blasting away with weapons you upgrade over time.

Spectromancer: Truth & Beauty - $9.99A deck-building adventure game that takes you into a strange world where you fight elves in one battle, then find yourself facing clockwork monsters the next battle. Absorbing, but a little random, since you don't control your deck directly.

The Binding of Isaac - $4.99The Super Meat Boy team is back, bringing their trademark cutesque art style and punishing difficulty to another retro-styled indie gem. The Binding of Isaac is a tough game to categorize, cramming a randomly generated dungeon crawler and a real-time top-down shooter into a neat action-packed The Legend of Zelda themed package.

Dungeons of Dredmor - $4.99Nothing says serious like the rogue-like genre, a traditionally methodical, slow-paced genre where death is permanent and ever-present. Enter Dungeons of Dredmor. This fun and funky take on the dungeon crawler lightens it up a bit with a Monkey Island style aesthetic, replete with vibrant cartoony sprites and hilarious text descriptions.

Capsized - $9.99Much like Bastion, Capsized provides the perfect mix of gorgeous hand-drawn 2D art and addictive action. Capsized's grappling hook, gravity gun, and jetpack make it a joy to explore and manipulate its expansive levels, and a wide variety of weapons—from shotguns, to rockets, to flamethrowers—keeps combat fun throughout.

Gemini Rue - $9.99A sharply-written futuristic noir mystery, Gemini Rue is evocative of such works as Blade Runner and Cowboy Bebop. A callback to the finely crafted adventure games of the VGA era, Gemini Rue's dark and gritty world is brought to life with top-notch voice acting, an outstanding musical score, and organic and streamlined puzzle design.

Dungeon Defenders - $14.99Back in the middle ages, who would have known just how fun dungeons would turn out to be? Equal parts Orcs Must Die and Castle Crashers, the colorful cel-shaded Dungeon Defenders is a hybrid, class-based, multiplayer focused tower defense, hack-n-slasher.

Renegade Ops - $14.99Like exploding stuff? Like ridiculous over-the-top action movie tropes? Like completely chaotic multiplayer madness? Then Renegade Ops is the game for you! Despite its generic and forgettable title, this top-down arcade style shooter is one of the most action-packed and straight-up fun games we've played in awhile.

Magicka - $9.99Like exploding your friends? Like ridiculous-sounding fake Swedish? Like completely chaotic multiplayer madness? Then Magicka is the game for you! This wildly imaginative game puts the forces of Magic in your hands, letting you create a nearly endless amount of spell effects by combining 8 different arcane elements. This focus on experimentation makes Magicka one of the most unique, memorable, and hilariously fun experiences—especially with 4 players.

Terraria - $9.99Create, destroy, explore, adventure, Terraria lets you do all these things…and more! Affectionately (or derisively, depending on who you ask) dubbed a 2D Minecraft, Terraria has all the freedom of an open sandbox, but also concrete objectives if you prefer a more traditional gaming experience.

Don't go buying Bastion until you play the demo. Big mistake I made there. I walked in expecting that with keyboard and mouse controls by default they'd be at least functional. They're not, oh god they're not. The mouse aiming requires you to line up not your crosshair with the target, but a line offset from your crosshair (which doesn't appear until you start shooting and missing) with the SHADOW of the target. An utterly crap system that will have you consistently trying to aim OFF the target to hit it as dropping your crosshairs directly on the target will make you miss.

If you can put up with the terrible controls, then by all means buy it, but absolutely play the demo to find out if the crap combat is an issue for you or not.

Sins of a Solar Empire is a pretty rich 4x RTS... a very good game and great for multi-player. It is also due for a massive update soonish (no announcement yet on the release date) that will enable super-capital ships called Titans and another smaller class of ship... I've put a couple hundred hours into the multiplayer, easily.

it's nice to see all of these stardock working their way onto steam, but i bought some of them back on impulse.

Sins of a solar empire is a pretty good game, but one i'd strongly reccomend picking up is galactic civilizations II; it's sort of like civilization, but in space, very entertaining strategy game, and right now only 15

We didn't exactly forget about TF2, we just already included it in our collection of free games from a few weeks back. We tried to focus more here on some cheap gems that may have flown under the radar a bit, but are still awesome.

Frets on Fire = Guitar Hero Clone for the PCNexuiz = Unreal Death Match FPS game (they're making an HD version for the Xbox and PSN)OpenArena = an arcade FPS game I believeSecret Maryo Chronicles = Super Mario cloneSuperTux = Mario Kart clone

As for the others, they're all new to me. :P BTW, check this out:

http://www.nplay.com/

It's browser version of Cstrike clone and some racer game. The graphics are pretty good; try it out today! Free, legal, and it runs pretty smooth on most computers (I think? I really don't know since mine is a custom $1000 budget gaming rig).

I've got Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, LIMBO and Terraria. Haven't played Terraria, but the others are great games. LIMBO has little replay value though, and Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac are very difficult, but they're all very fun and original.

Nice list. I can vouch for Sins of a Solar Empire, Section 8: Prejudice and Sanctum - all very entertaining games. Also, you can get a lot of these games for whatever you want to pay during the Indie Royale Big Bundle sales. http://www.indieroyale.com/

Oh yeah, one other less than $20 game I would recommend is Defense Grid: The Awakening. You can pick it up on Steam for $9.99 and they often have it on sale for around $4. Hella fun tower defense game.

Nice list, but what with Steam (and Android Market now with their $0.10 sale) having their marketing gear firmly set to 'high', they have deals which fall into this category easily. I think it was only a couple days ago, Terraria and Dungeon Defenders (both in the article) had a 75% discount.